Character Additions to "It's a Small World"

You may know that the "It's a Small World" attraction underwent some major refurbishment this year and reopened back in February. There's an article and pics here. Not only did the ride get some routine clean ups and maintenance done, but Disney also added some familiar movie characters to the ride. This was a subject of much controversy among Dland and Small World attraction fans. Some feared the characters would look out of place among the very stylized Mary Blair figures. Well, I had the opportunity to see the new figures this summer. It was great. Not only were the figures great, but I hadn't been on the ride in about a decade so it was almost like riding it for the first time. The ride really is great...and extra great after you've been walking around Dland for two days in 80-90 degree weather. So, I took plenty of pics, me being a camera whore. I didn't get all of the character additions because some of them snuck up on me and we were past them before I got the chance to get a pic. So here are my pics for those of you who haven't experienced the new additions! (BTW, click on the pics for larger views. You can really see the detail.) Enjoy!

Alice! I think she fits right in. In fact, she probably fits in the most because Mary Blair actually did some Alice work. You can see it and her work from some other Disney movies here.


Here's Cinderella. I actually had to ask my friend who she was at first because I didn't see the mice and I think she looks really generic. Also, BTW, this is the London section which is first. Before Alice there was Peter and Tink flying above but I passed them before I could get a pic. I think they could have done some other characters here too like Sleeping Beauty and her fairies which would have been less generic than Cinderella. There are other films set in England too that they could have added or done instead of Cinderella but whatever, she's okay.


Pinnochio! The only thing about this one is that I wonder why they did him one dimensional. I mean all of them are puppets. They could have taken advantage of him since he IS a puppet. Also, he's really isolated with no other characters around him like they just stuck him in there which I thought was weird too.


Here's Aladdin and Jasmine. I thought they went really well. They were in the right place and blended with the style and everything. I was happy with this addition.


Here's a close-up of Mulan. I barely caught her before we went into the next room. She's sort of tucked into a corner. She holds on to a kite that looks like Mushu that's not in this pic. The only problem I had was this was it's place stuck in the corner and I also would have liked to see her in her normal outfit instead of her boy stuff. It would have gone better with the blossoms behind her too. But, other than that, I think it's a great interpretation of the boy version of Mulan.


Here's Simba and Pumbaa. Timon is also there but I didn't get him in the pic. I was so happy to see them there because I love the Lion King. I also thought they did a good job here of capturing the Mary Blair spirit (which must have been hard because they are animals) but still making them recognizable.

So that's it for this post. I have more Small World pics but I'll put them in another post because this one's already pretty long.

Dland Silkscreening

So the other day, this genius idea occurred to me. It's probably been done before but I'd love to do it for myself. I was thinking about vintage Disneyland posters, which are awesome. You can see a bunch over at Daveland. I really like the look of some of them. They've got this really stylized, 50s/60s retro look to them. And then I thought "Wouldn't it be cool if they had T-shirts with vintage posters on them?" I know you can "print on demand" at various places at Disneyland but there aren't T-shirts as far as I know. If anyone knows, please let me know. Anyways, my idea was silkscreening my own shirts. Unfortunately, I don't have expensive equipment or a very good facility to do it in. I found a "do it at home" method on YouTube, which I might try but at the moment, I have like 5 projects going and school so this would be a project for the future. But the mostly simple shapes and limited color palettes on the posters lend themselves to relatively easy silkscreening projects but I don't know because I've never tried it. I just think it would be great if I had my own custom T-shirts with vintage posters on them!

Professional Way:

(aren't these guys awesome?)

At Home:



So that's my great idea. I hope I can do it sometime and it works out. I'd probably have to make different stencils for the different colors, but I'd have an awesome shirt that no one else does!

Disney Sequels Part 2

Okay, where did I leave off? Oh, and a warning. This may contain SPOILERS.

Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World (1998)

The Lion King II: Simba's Pride (1998)

Alright, Pocahontas was one of the golden age films. Although not as popular as Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, or Aladdin, I still enjoy it. It bothered me slightly at the end of the movie when John Smith had to leave. It was the only Disney movie I had ever seen where the main guy and gal didn't end up together. It didn't make me dislike the movie though. It just kind of left it there saying that they each had their places in their own worlds, where they were needed most. I refuse to watch the sequel because I have heard that Pocahontas ends up with a man other than John Smith (which is factual, I know) and I've seen screen shots of her in that dress and wig and it's so sad! I don't want my image of the noble, wise and beautiful Pocahontas tainted, okay? So that's that.

The Lion King II. Okay, out of all the Disney sequels I've seen, this one is by far the best. Syskel & Ebert even liked it! They got almost all of the original voices including voices for Mufasa, Simba, Rafiki, Nala, Timon and Pumbaa. The new characters were interesting...Zira is an insane villain but not as cool and collected as scar, her son Nuka (Andy Dick) is neurotic but the part where he dies is heart breaking, her son Kovu is a pretty awesome main character (Jason Marsden, who has provided a lot for Disney including the voice of Goofy's son, Max), and her daughter Vitani is pretty kick ass (Lacy Chabert of Mean Girls popularity). The thing that bothered me was the lack of Sarabi. What, did she just drop off the face of the earth??? I really liked Simba's mom. Sadly, the woman behind her powerful voice, Madge Sinclair, died of cancer shortly after the first movies release. She and James Earl Jones played a different sort of African King and Queen in "Coming to America" with Eddie Murphy, which I always find amusing. Also, Suzanne Pleshette, the voice of Zira also has since passed away. Anyways, the animation is also MUCH improved when compared to "Return of Jafar." Also, the movie had a pretty good story line. It was interesting to see Simba as a father (although I liked him better in the first movie. He wasn't as uptight and protective.) I really liked Kiara's rebellious nature and how she was so much like her father. The songs didn't live up to the first movies, but it's a sequel, what can you ask for? They were decent though. I just want to say something though. Matthew Broderick can sing. He has been on Broadway! Why don't they ever use his singing voice??? I mean, the guys they choose for his singing voices are good but why? Maybe they wanted a manlier singing voice haha. One of my favorite songs is "He lives in you" where they brought Lebo M. back in to work on the African chants.

They liked the song so much, they used it TWICE in the musical and it works quite well with the first movie's story line because if you remember, when Simba meets back up with Rafiki, Rafiki puts his finger in the water and says, "You see, he lives in you." That's one of my favorite parts! Here's the Broadway reprise version, which I love.

I also like the songs from the movie, "We are One," and "Love will Find a Way."

I hate the song "Upendi." Oh my goodness, it's weird. But, despite a few drawbacks, The Lion King II is dang good for a Disney sequel and the sales show it. I think it's one of the highest, if not THE highest grossing of straight to video/DVD Disney sequels out there if I'm not mistaken.

Disney Sequels

Okay, so I'm gonna take a break with my ideal dland tour before I delve into Fantasyland and talk about Disney sequels. I'm not counting live actions although the second and third Pirates did NOT live up to the first and were dissapointments. And there are a few others but I won't get into them. There's a wiki add here about the sequels. So here's the first part of the list they give: (I say part because I realize that I'll have to do this in sections)...

The Return of Jafar (1994)

Aladdin and the King of Thieves (1996)

Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin (1997)

Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas (1997)

Belle's Magical World (1998)

Now I have only seen a few of these. In fact, I OWN some of them. First there's Return of Jafar, which I own and actually watched out of complete boredom a few days ago to see if it was as crappy as I remembered it....It was. Even as a kid, I realized that it was lacking. But now, I noticed a lot more. Firstly, the voices. Genie, obviously is lacking. He simply CAN'T be played by anyone other than Robin Williams. But I did look up the other voices and they got most of the characters back, surprisingly. Even Brad Kane, the singing voice for Aladdin came back. Lea Solanga didn't return however. But, Jasmine's singing voice was done by another beloved singing voice of mine, Liz Callaway, who did Anastasia's singing voice (not Disney, I know but still good), Odette's singing voice in The Swan Princess (you know you remember that one and you like it! I own it haha.) and Adult Kiara's voice in Lion King II. So most of the voices were okay and omg, they got Jason Alexander for Abis Mal? Wow. I don't know how they convinced him to do that. Okay, so other than the lack of Robin Williams, the story is just weird. Basically Jafar comes back, gets a retarded owner, Iago turns good, and then they defeat Jafar AGAIN. Thirdly, the graphics suck. If you just compare the carpet, it's so simplified it's not even funny. It looks like one of those disney channel series (like the Aladdin one, in fact haha). It just looks really sloppy and I know it's because the budget wasn't there. So they must have planned it to be straight to video for some extra cash. It wasn't worth it, Disney. Sorry.

Next, I guess Disney wanted to redeem themselves with King of Thieves and they did...slightly. They got Robin back, which made all the difference and they got a better story line, which involved Aladdin's dad (John Rhys-Davies!) and Aladdin and Jasmine FINALLY getting married. In fact, there's a song that says that exact thing. It would have been awesome if they could have gotten Alan Menken back but I suppose he was working on other Disney gems of the golden age at that time (Beauty and the Beast, Pocahontas, Hunchback). I've only seen King of Thieves once or twice so I don't remember much of it but I do remember it being a heck of a lot better than Return of Jafar. Haha, I just remembered that I have some McDonald's toys from when that was released. I've got little figures of Jasmine in her wedding clothes and I think I also got Aladdin's dad. They're probably lost by now but it's funny that I remember those...

I don't really watch Winnie the Pooh stuff so I haven't seen Pooh's grand adventure but there are so many installments of Pooh that I'm guessing it's just as good as the rest of the stuff.

Next is Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas. And, yes I owned that one too although it mysteriously disappeared along with our copy of Hercules unfortunately. So, this is what Wiki calls a "midquel" in that the story occurs somewhere in the course of the first movie's plot. So it happens when the Beast is still a Beast and it's Christmas time (I guess somewhere around the time where Belle and the Beast sing the song "Something There"). It's just random. There were a few new characters added like the evil pipe organ (Tim Curry!) and the little Christmas tree topper "Angelique" played by Bernadette Peters. Haley Joel Osment was Chip! Holy crap haha. That kid... Most of the main voices came back but I just don't understand why or how they convinced Peters and Curry to do it. And it was sort of wasted talent because it's a straight to video Disney movie and it's a midquel so we all know what will eventually happen anyway...

Belle's Magical World? I know nothing about. After the above mentioned sequels I started to notice that they weren't really worth watching and that they kind of dimmed the awesomeness factor of their predecessors. But, Paige O'Hara kept coming back. Props to her for being a trooper I guess.